Endurance, 2020

In these times, when it seems we are enduring not just a life-threatening disease but a viral invasion of fear and loathing via this Information Highway — I find myself succumbing to the infection — we can forget that nature itself also holds the power of healing.

After several weeks of self-isolation, broken by the occasional bread and milk run and walks around the garden, my wife and I packed a picnic and drove beyond the horizon. Here’s where we ate our lunch, not much more than 20 kilometres from our home. No problem with social distancing at this location — The few who stopped by, drawn by this arresting, and to me allegorical scene,* smiled from a safe distance.

Since Covid-19 confined us to our homes, I’ve endeavoured to rouse myself from anxiety and depression with work on neglected images from my film archive. And that has been a good thing, despite a giant yawn from the Internet. But I hope to illustrate with this photograph that I don’t live entirely in the past. If I am an archivist, I’m adding recent moments to the collection — on hard drives more than film and film “captures” (hate that term) end up there after scanning. Incidental to that job, I just took care of an external backup drive crash.

I was reminded this morning that is an important job. I’m subscribed to a British Columbia history group on Facebook (one of the few reasons I endure the platform). A few days ago someone posted an incorrectly captioned photo of a ruin in the interior. I was able to quickly scan and post a photo of the building in happier times and post it along with part of the history I knew. Perhaps I’ll reprise that here in the coming days.

In the meantime, I’m going to repeat yesterday’s escape more often — a healthy plan under any circumstance. May we all come out of these trying times bent but unbowed.

Prints available here.

*That may soon be obscured by waterfront development.